AN ENGLISH PLUM-PUDDING
The first day of our voyage on the Béhéra was calm, and we sat cheerfully at dinner listening to his conversation. He was particularly emphatic in his assertions that he understood something of English cuisine, I believe taught by his mother, and above all he understood the concoction of an English plum-pudding and that it must be boiled for twenty-four hours. Said he, “You shall have a plum-pudding for dinner tomorrow.” Then and there he sent for the steward and gave him full instructions. Next evening the plum-pudding duly appeared, but meantime the wind had freshened and the sea had risen. Under such conditions I am in the habit of retiring to my cabin and remaining prostrate until happier hours dawn—but was I to shake, if not shatter, the allegiance of this British subject by failing in my duty to a British pudding? I did not flinch. I sat through the courses until the pudding was on the table. I ate and praised, and then retired.
We reached Athens early on the following morning and forgot rough seas and plum-puddings in the pleasure of revisiting our former haunts and showing them to Jersey and Villiers. The King and Queen were again good enough to ask us to luncheon and dinner, and this time we also found the British Minister, Sir Edmund Monson, who had been absent on our previous visit. He kindly included Villiers, though barely sixteen years old, in an invitation to dinner, and much amusement was caused in diplomatic circles by the very pretty daughter of the American Minister, Clarice Fearn. She was about seventeen and had evidently been almost deprived of young companionship during her sojourn at Athens. She was seated at the British Legation between Villiers and a French Secretary no longer in his first youth, so she promptly turned to the latter and said, “I am not going to talk to you, I am going to talk to Lord Villiers”; result, an animated conversation between the youngsters throughout dinner. She at once acquired the nickname of “La belle-fille de l’avenir,” and long afterwards a man who had been at the British Legation some time subsequent to our visit said that he had always heard her called this, though he had never known the reason. I need hardly add that “Society” at Athens was very small and easily amused. Poor “belle-fille de l’avenir,” I saw her again when she and her sister stayed for a time at Somerville College at Oxford, but she died quite young. Her sister, Mrs. Barton French, still lives.
THE GREEK ROYAL FAMILY
For the rest I need not recapitulate Greek experiences beyond transcribing part of a letter to my mother which contains an account of the domestic life of the Greek Royal Family in those bygone days:
“Despite the weather we have been very comfortable here and found almost all our old friends. The Queen has a new baby since last year, to whom she is quite devoted. It is number seven, but you might think they had never had a baby before. The first time we had luncheon there we all migrated to the nursery, and the Duke of Sparta who is going to marry Princess Sophie of Germany, almost resented George’s suggestion that some beautiful gold things of his might be moved out of the nursery cupboard, as he said ‘they have always been there.’ Last Sunday we had luncheon there again, and this time the baby was brought downstairs and his brothers and sisters competed for the honour of nursing him, the Queen and several of us finally seating ourselves on the floor in order that the infant prince might more conveniently play with the head of his next youngest brother, who lay down with it on a cushion for the purpose. It makes one almost sad to see the eldest Princess, brought up like this—a perfectly innocent girl always in fits of laughter—going to be married to one of the Czar’s brothers; she will find it so different in that Russian Court, poor thing.”
Further on in the same letter I write:
“Everyone has a different story about the Rudolph-Stephanie affair. I have met several people who knew the Baroness and say she was very lovely. Some disbelieve suicide, as he was shot through the back of his head and she through the small of her back, but, as the Austrian Minister here says, no one knows or ever will know the real truth. I think the tragedies in those three imperial houses, Russia, Germany, and Austria, surpass any the world has ever seen,” and I cite the wise man’s prayer for “neither poverty nor riches” as “about right.”
My mother sent the long letter of which this formed part to my aunt Theodora Guest, who made a characteristic comment. She allowed the wisdom of the prayer, but continued—“but in praying for neither poverty nor riches, I should be careful to add ‘especially not the former,’ for I don’t see that poverty ensures peace, or security from murder—and it would be hard to be poor all one’s life and be murdered at the end! Better be rich and comfortable if only for a time. Still I would not be Empress of Russia for something, and that poor innocent Grecian princess is to be pitied.”
This was written April 1889. What would my mother, my aunt, or myself have said now?